Devil's Bargain (17 page)

“Yeah,” Jazz agreed softly. “They’re crazy.”

“Then you want to quit?”

Silence. There were cars coming. Jazz glanced at the distant oncoming headlights, then met Lucia’s eyes and held them. “No,” she said. “I don’t want to quit. Not the partnership, anyway.”

Lucia’s smile was warm, wicked and utterly crazy. “Neither do I. This is just about to get…interesting.”

Four months later

“P
ansy, where the
hell
is the DeMontis file?”

“Under
D.
”

“It’s not under—oh. There it is.” Jazz grabbed it and slammed the lateral filing cabinet shut, then used a corner of her assistant’s desk to support the folder as she flipped the massive thing open. “Dammit. Has Lucia not filed her latest surveillance report yet?”

Pansy, for answer, clicked keys on her computer and a sheet of paper was spit out of her printer. She chunked a couple of holes in the top and handed it to Jazz. “E-mailed ten minutes ago.”

Jazz read the text, frowning, pacing, and reached across Pansy for the desk phone. Pansy glided her chair out of the way and sorted mail. No suits for Pansy these days; she had on a flower-patterned top, black pants, cat-eye glasses, and red streaks through her dark hair. The real Pansy, Jazz was sure. She’d told her to wear whatever she liked, but it had taken a good two weeks, in the beginning, for Pansy to slowly give up the formal wear.

Jazz continued to set a bad example by modeling the latest in fleece pullovers, blue jeans, and—on special occasions—loose-fitting shirts over colored T-shirts. And by failing to practice political correctness in the workplace.

The past few months had been tense at first. They’d kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the attack, for…something. But the Cross Society had been mysteriously quiet. And despite Laskins’s scare tactics, the world hadn’t come to an end. Evil psychic ninjas hadn’t shown up to kill them, and the Cross Society hadn’t even demanded their hundred thousand dollars back. And so, they’d settled into business as usual.

Jazz read as Pansy sorted mail, flipping junk into the trash, catalogs into a to-be-reviewed pile, personal mail for Jazz and Lucia into a third. Pansy hesitated over one envelope and ripped it open with a sharp little steel opener and pulled out a check. The printing was familiar. Their favorite client, DeMontis, had come through with another payment. Pansy waved it at Jazz, who nodded as she dialed the phone.

Lucia picked it up on the second ring. “
Holá,
” she said.

“Can you talk?”

“For now. I’m busy cleaning toilets.”

“I hope you’re using hands-free on the cell, because, you know, ugh.”

“Very funny. What?”

“The report,” Jazz said. “You still haven’t seen them make the drop?”

“I think that’s what it says in my last report, why, yes. And let me ask again why I’m the one wearing a sloppy green apron and emptying trash cans and scrubbing toilets? Is this a commentary on my national heritage?”

“It’s a commentary on the fact that you agreed to take this crappy industrial espionage case, not me,” Jazz replied. “I like the background checks.”

“You like the divorce cases,” Lucia said gloomily.

“I like easy work where I don’t get shot. So, are these guys just smarter than you, or what?”

“You know, if you’re trying to piss me off, that’s not very difficult when my eyes are burning from cleaning products, and I’m contemplating how men always miss the urinals.”

“I like you better pissed off.”

“Love you, too,” Lucia said. “Two more days and I’m out of here, and then
you
can come and show them how to scrub a bathroom while I call you and make taunting remarks about your detective skills.”

Jazz hung up without a response.

“We’re losing money on that one, boss,” Pansy said. “Two weeks of her time? Unless she brings in the whole pig, not just the bacon—”

“I know.” Jazz nodded at the check in Pansy’s hand. “Covers expenses, right?”

“Yeah, but I’ve got a bonus coming. Oh, and boss?” Pansy hesitated, then blurted out, “He called again.”

“He?” Like Jazz didn’t know.

“Ex-boss.”

Ex-boss
meant James Borden, of course. “Did you hang up on him? Insult him using lots of short Anglo-Saxon words?”

“I
like
him,” Pansy said mournfully. “Do you, you know, have to—”

“Make him suffer? Yes, Pansy, I do. It’s my job. And it gives me such a nice, warm glow of satisfaction, too.” Jazz piled mail on top of the heavy DeMontis folder and headed toward her office. “If he calls again, tell him—”

“He’s coming.”

She stopped dead in her tracks and turned to look at Pansy, who had the grace to seem embarrassed. “Repeat that.”

“He’s on a plane,” Pansy explained. “He’s going to be here in a couple of hours, tops.”

“You told him I wouldn’t talk to him?”

“Boss, I’ve told him a thousand times. Which is, you know, how many times he’s actually called, and you’d think somebody at GPL would start tracking those phone charges, wouldn’t you?”

“If he shows up, call Security,” Jazz said grimly, and walked into her office.

Pansy called, “Want me to make reservations? Someplace nice?”

Jazz slammed the door with a kick, and heard a muffled “Okay, guess not,” through the wood. She snorted back a laugh.

Borden, coming here. Jazz dropped folder and mail onto her desk, and sank down in her chair. She picked up a catalog and flipped through it. She stared blankly at the latest in tasers and rubber bullets for crowd control.

Pansy opened the door without knocking, sailed in and slammed a cup of coffee down on Jazz’s desktop. Jazz looked up, surprised.

“I know, you told me I’d never have to get coffee,” Pansy said, “but honestly, don’t you think you should at least talk to him?”

“I don’t want coffee, and why the hell would I do that?” Jazz asked. She tried to go back to her law-enforcement catalog.

“Because he’s a total hottie who’s obviously crazy in love with you?” Pansy took the catalog out of her hands and handed her a copy of
Elle.
“Here. Try to find something that looks like it didn’t come out of the gang-banger collection.”

“I’m not dressing up for
Borden.
”

“He dresses up for you.”

“Does not.”

“Does—” Pansy was interrupted by the phone, switched in midstream and snatched the receiver out of the cradle. “Jasmine Callender’s office, this is Pansy, how can I—oh, hey, Manny. Yeah, she’s right here. Tell her to buy some new clothes, would you?”

She extended the phone without looking at Jazz, who tossed
Elle
unopened back on the desk and took the receiver. Pansy, like Lucia, had a nice manicure. Jazz studied the short, stubby nails on her right hand as she held the phone to her left ear and said, “Manny?”

“Is this line—”

“Secure? Yeah, Manny, it’s secure.” She rolled her eyes at Pansy, who shook her head. “What’s up?”

“I have something you might be interested in. A private client brought it in.”

He was being careful. With Manny,
private client
usually meant a cop who was working off the books, for various reasons—maybe because the department had shut down the investigation, maybe because the budget was too tight to run the tests he or she wanted done. Manny usually threw them a discount, and sometimes an outright freebie.

Something strange
might mean something he wanted out of his lab, which meant violent crime. Jazz was not averse to that.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll drop by. You still in the same place?”

“I’ll bring it to you,” he said.

She blinked. “Excuse me…?”

“I’ll bring it to you. To the office.”

“You’re leaving your lab.”

“Yes.”

“By yourself.”

“Yes.” Manny—
Manny!
—was starting to sound irritated. “I do get out, you know. Sometimes.”

“If you say so,” she said, and gave Pansy a pantomime of a wide-eyed
what the hell?
“Today?”

“An hour.”

“Are you going to be wearing a disguise, or—”

“Shut up, Jazz.” He hung up on her. She took the phone away from her ear and stared at it, then replaced it in the cradle.

“You know,” she said to Pansy, “there are some days when the world is just too strange for words, and this is one of them.”

Pansy patted her on the hand and handed her
Elle.

She put it back and picked up
Guns & Ammo
and, without even thinking, reached for the coffee and sipped it. Pansy grinned in triumph and left, shutting the door after herself.

Borden was coming, after a four-month absence. That made her feel warm and odd, and impatient with herself for it. She’d cut the cord with him. With Gabriel, Pike & Laskins in general. She and Lucia—she presumed—hadn’t had contact with them since the last red envelope had arrived, via FedEx, and that had consisted of taking the envelope, unopened, sticking it in another FedEx envelope and sending it right back with a sticky note reading
Not playing the game.

Maybe Borden was coming to deliver a last-ditch personal appeal. Maybe GPL—or the Cross Society—was desperate enough to try to whore him out.

Like we’re that important.
She didn’t believe it. She didn’t think Lucia believed it, either.

Maybe Borden was just…coming to see her.
Someplace nice for dinner.
She hadn’t even thought about dinner with him, not since Arthur Bryant’s, when everything had gone to hell with one phone call.

No. No dinner. No conversation. I want nothing to do with James Borden.

And some part of her brain added,
Well, sleeping with the enemy might be kind of fun. Not to mention informative.

She told it sternly to shut up, sipped coffee and eyed
Elle
while determinedly reviewing the latest in zip-tie cuffs in
Law Enforcement Supply.

Manny arrived an hour later, on the dot, looking freshly scrubbed and far neater than Jazz could remember—practically presentable, in fact. He’d forgotten to take off the lab coat, but other than that, the button-down shirt and blue jeans were clean, if a little frayed, and the tennis shoes were almost brand-new. He’d gotten a haircut—or, more likely, done it himself—and it made him look ten years younger. He’d even shaved, but as usual, the constant five-o’clock shadow made him look a bit shifty.

His eyes were nervous, trying to look everywhere, bright with terror, but he was here. Standing beside Pansy’s desk, hands in his lab-coat pockets.

Shaking but upright.

Jazz stood in the doorway for a second, taking it in; there was a tight bloom of happiness inside her, seeing him. She loved Manny, she always had. He was a gentle soul, and he’d never deserved anything that he’d endured. It was nice to see him finding his strength again.

And then she saw him smile, and something clicked into focus with blinding clarity.

Ahh. He was smiling at
Pansy.
And she was smiling back, warmly. They’d been spending time on the phone, and Pansy had started taking all the drop-offs to Manny. But this was a big step forward.

No wonder Manny was out of the house and looking human again. Sometimes, the best therapy was just plain old hormones.

“Manny,” she said, since clearly Manny was at a loss for words when it came to chatting up women—that part probably had nothing to do with his posttraumatic stress and everything to do with being a lab geek from way, way back. Manny looked relieved and put out at the same time. “Hey, bro, it’s good to see you.”

He nodded jerkily, shifted his feet and abruptly held out a package. It was wrapped in brown paper, taped securely and tied with string. The tape was evidence tape, and he’d practically hermetically sealed the thing.

She reached out and took it off his hands.

“Anything you want to tell me about this?” she asked, and got a violent shake of his head. “Who dropped it off to you?”

“A friend,” he said. Which could mean anything, or nothing. “You don’t need to know. Just…take a look at it. Tell me what you think.”

“Anything in particular I should be looking for?”

“You’ll know,” he said. “If I’m right. Um, I—authenticated—anyway. There’s nothing hinky about them. I checked.”

He shoved his hands back into the lab coat. The package felt light in her hand. Paper, maybe. Clothing. Nothing very substantial. The packing he’d wrapped it in probably weighed more than the item.

“Want to stick around, or…?”

“No,” he said, and whirled around to look at Pansy, who looked back, startled. “No, I—bye.”

He hurried away, jerky movements, head down. He took the stairs, not the elevator. Pansy and Jazz watched him go.

“Huh,” Pansy said contemplatively. Which Jazz supposed kind of covered it.

She shook her head, went into her office and closed the door.

Using a pair of sharp scissors and a pocketknife, it still took her about ten minutes to strip away the tape-reinforced paper to reveal…a tape-reinforced box. She slit the tape, put the box down on the table and reached into her desk drawer for a pair of latex gloves, which she donned before lifting off the top of the cardboard box. It had been designed for letterhead, she saw—plain white, no markings unless they were hidden by the evidence tape. She didn’t know if it was Manny’s box, or the one provided by his “friend”—but then, she realized, Manny would never damage it by slapping tape all over potential evidence.

Inside lay a sheet of paper and what looked like three eight-by-ten photographs underneath it. She focused first on the paper, which was computer printing on plain copy stock.

Jazz: Note time and date stamp on photos

Nothing else, but for Manny, that was the equivalent of a page-long memo. She set the paper aside and looked at what was underneath.

The first picture underneath was grainy black-and-white, clearly taken in low light. The note was right, there was a time/date stamp on the lower right-hand corner in block white letters. The photo was of an alley, a part of a sign flush against a building that said
vet Palace.
Since veterinarians rarely had that kind of neon, that had to be the Velvet Palace, a not-so-gentlemanly club over on the raw side of town. There were three men pictured. Two were standing under a floodlight, and the camera caught a good shot of one of their faces. She didn’t recognize him.